Beer Cupcakes!

So - I know that i am four days late. I apologize - but i have been kind of busy. It was my little ladies birthday so I was baking for her, a pair of Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-man birthday cakes.


Check them out.

She dug into the cakes before i could frost the chocolate chip heart or Mrs. Pac-man's bow... but the thought was there.

So on to Septembers recipe.

Many of you don't know me, but those that do - know i love to imbibe in the occasional spirit, so for your consideration -- I give you Guinness Cupcakes.

The beer adds a richness and moisture, and balances the sweetness of the sugar. Now you don't need to make cupcakes in fact when i make this recipe i think i will just throw the whole thing into my spring form pan. (which i know everyone should have now right?)

The cake is topped with a cream cheese glaze, which is also super-easy.

Cake
1 cup Guinness
1 stick, plus 1 tb, unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tb vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda

Glaze*
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350; butter a muffin tin.

Combine the Guinness and the butter, chopped into 1-inch chunks, in a large sauce pan, and heat to melt the butter. Remove from heat, and whisk in the cocoa and sugar.

In a bowl, whisk the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, then add to the beer mixture. Sift together the flour and baking soda, and fold into the batter. Pour into muffin molds and bake for 25 minutes, or until inserted cake tester comes out clean.

Let stand 10 minutes, remove from tin, and cool completely on a rack.

Using a mixer, whip cream cheese until smooth, sift in sugar, and beat. Add milk, and beat until smooth. Spread glaze over cooled cupcakes.

*To create a thinner glaze, use a tablespoon or two more milk; for a topping more akin to icing, use less milk, and perhaps more sugar. In either case, add a little sugar or milk at a time, mix, and check for desired consistency.

Hope everyone enjoys -- and also i know any dark beer should work - look for Stouts - try a local microbrew if you have one -- could make for a different taste.

I'll make some this weekend - and post up my pictures.

This is one from the website I borrowed the recipe from.

Enjoy !

Labor Day is still summer!!

Since today is the officially start of September, I thought it was high time I posted for the August recipe (especially considering I'm the one who posted the darn thing in the first place!). In reading over everyone else's posts, it seems that my experience was similar to most - I had to let the cake cook a bit longer than the hour called for by the recipe, and found that the solo cake was somewhat lacking in sweetness and flavor (and mind you, I am not a fan of uber-sweet desserts so this is saying something).

So here's how it all happened...

Ingredients pre-cake batter

Mixing the ricotta...

Pouring the batter into the springform...

Baking! My oven is on the smaller side and becomes hot very quickly, so I always need to set it about 25 degrees F lower than what is called for

Out of the oven and cooling

After allowing the cake to cool in form for awhile, I chilled it in the fridge overnight. The following evening, this is what it looked like when I took it out of the tin.

Voila! All done

Not sure when I plan to make this again, but a couple of thoughts for when I do...

• The flavor of the ricotta is so light, it really needs something more to heighten the taste. Maybe more lemon and cinnamon, and perhaps I'd add more in the way of spices - like cloves or nutmeg.
• Another way to compensate for the light "blank canvas" nature of the cake is to go for more flavor and interest in the topping (which many have already touched upon). My mom also made the cake, and having had vast quantities of blueberries she recently picked at a berry farm, she decided to go with a sort of blueberry compote as a topping. As for me, I am huge fan of honey - and so I simply drizzled a good bit over the piece I'd eat.
  
• My little sister is a pastry chef at a resort in Wisconsin and mentioned to me that they recently made a ricotta cheesecake that actually uses a blend of cream cheese and ricotta (granted, I think they also import fancy buffalo's milk ricotta... which I have no intentions of doing). Could be a fun experiment though. And who doesn't love more cheese.
  

So there you have it. Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Better late then never

I too tried low fat ricotta. I used a 10" spring form pan and because Megan said the middle was soft, I baked mine for 1 hour. Because so many mentioned the lack of sweetness, I made sure I used all the honey called for. After I emptied the measuring cup, I put the cup into the microwave for about 8 seconds, then I was able to pour yet more honey into the mix.

I made a blueberry sauce topping with 1/4 c sugar, 2/3 cup fresh blueberries, 3 tablespoons water. Boil for 2 minutes, then add a mixture of 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch, bring to a boil again and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly during the whole process. Let it cool until the cake is finished, then after 15 or so minutes, spread it over the top.

The cake was really tasty. I would definitely bake it longer next time as the center was a little soft but still tasted good and with the blueberry sauce, there was enough sweetness. Another observation is that this would be a delicious brunch dish as when I ate it at night, it sat in my stomach all night and into the morning. I would make it again and if I served it at night, serve very small slices. It was lovely to look at and if I ever get my digital camera software on this computer, I will post pics. I can't wait to try next months recipe.

California Cake

Hello everyone - - Trevor here - So i made the cake on Saturday - but I've been too busy to get around to this post - but since the deadline is Sunday - i figure i needed to get to work.

First thing first for me was getting a the pan luckily - there was a Linen 'N Things still in it's going out of business sale here in Sacramento so i got a nine inch one for about $7.

I know it was too big but it was cheap. I'd rather spend money on the ingredients.

So to I decided to try to make a healthier cake - so i used low fat skim ricotta cheese.

I think i learned the hard way that cake (especially cheese cake) probably shouldn't be low fat.

I also didn't use a food processor - just smashed everything together till it looked creamy.

So i got to baking Saturday night - with a nice stiff drink - after cooking up some apricot glazed pork chops and mashed potatoes.

The recipe was pretty simple - and I didn't change much - except using the low fat ricotta.

While i thought it came out very dry -- the cake still went over well with my co-workers.

To deal with the lack of sweet - i cooked some apples and soaked them in rum and honey to make a glaze.

That helped sweeten it up.

My recipe is up next - While i may force you to make my now famous 'Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies' - However i may also choose a more conventional/seasonable recipe.

Cake! Now With Less Gluten!!

Cheese, Gromit! CHEEEESE!!
Steve and I(Jess) decided to try our hand at the ricotta cheese cake last night. Neither of us had ever used ricotta cheese for anything, so there was some tasting to be done before actually putting it in the cake. It was kind of like eating whole milk; had that same kind of taste, just a different texture. Maybe that accounts for the not-quite-sweet-enough taste?

First order of business: Buy a springform pan. We ran down to the China Fair and found a very large collection. We ended up buying an 8x3 inch pan, not for any particular reason except that it was between the 7 inch the recipe called for and the 9 inch that seems to be the standard size. It worked fine anyways, and I think it's a good size.

Recipe Alterations
Lots of people had posted about the need for added sweetness. We made two main alterations to remedy that: White Rice and Tapioca Flour and Blueberry Sauce.

I think some of you know that I'm allergic to gluten, so I have to alter most baking recipes since they contain flour. After baking with gluten-free flours for a few months, Steve and I have found that a mixture of about 3 parts white rice flour to 1 part tapioca flour makes for a good fluffy baking flour that doesn't rise a lot, but has a sweeter taste than regular all-purpose flour.


For a glaze, we thought of using a blueberry sauce that Steve usually makes to put on pannukakku, which is a Finnish pancake. The recipe is pretty simple:
1. Mix 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1 tblspn corn starch in a small saucepan on the stove until boiling.
2. Turn down the heat and add about 1 cup of frozen blueberries.
We've had the sauce warm and cold before, and it's good and sweet either way. It worked extremely well, as it sank into the cake itself and helped to flavor all of it. Plus, something about the taste of blueberries and cheese is really good :)


We want cake! Where's our cake?!

Our food processor:


HULK SMASH CHEESE!



More batter shots:


In the pan (floured with white rice flour)


Just chillin'.


Our cake didn't rise at all, but I think that has to do with the flours.


Mmmmm midnight cake. It took forever to bake and and cool and chill (and we ate it still warm because it was way too late) but I wasn't leaving without eating some cake!!


Steve and I liked this recipe. We did notice though that despite the nice light-fluffy-ness, it sat kinda heavy after you ate it. Like your body suddenly realized how much cheese you just consumed. But it might be the flours too; gluten-free cooking can turn out heavy. But I was really pleased with the way it turned out!

Khabab's Writeup

Dear Readers,

This is a cake, unlike anything I've ever tasted before. Gail's description was dead-on. It's lighter than cheesecake, denser than a flour cake. Being a very inexperienced baker, I decided to play it safe and stick with the recipe, exactly as it was.

I shared this with my friends and co-workers and had them take a survey to give me their opinions. Everyone liked the texture and the use of peaches. On the other hand, everything indicated that the cake could be a little sweeter.

Sincerely,

Khabab

Here's the finished cake with the peaches.

And now for the testimonials ...

Megan's Ricotta Cake Report

I guess I am first.

Today I made Gail's posted recipe of Ricotta cake. The process was quite simple. I decided to make a few modifications, instead of using lemon I used almond flavoring to go with the honey flavoring. Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough honey, but I did the best I could. I mashed up all the ricotta and eggs and flavoring and some sliced up almonds. Baking took a bit longer in my oven than the recipe said and Karen recommends that I buy a thermometer for inside the oven so I know the real temp.

I used fat free ricotta, almond extract, and sliced almonds to replace the lemon juice and lemon zest.

I did shut off the oven when the center still seemed "soft" but I think I could have cooked it a bit longer. The sides came out firm but the center was too mushy for me. Yassine loved it, so maybe it's more of a texture thing.

Oh, instead of poached fruit I made a chocolate/almond glaze for the top using semi-sweet morsels, a little butter, and milk. I then sprinkled some more sliced almonds to finish it off. I was glad I decided to do a chocolate glaze because the sweetness of the cake was lacking. Perhaps it was my lack of honey that caused this.

Overall the cake was easy to make, and I enjoyed the flavor combinations that I used to make it my own, but if I make it again I'll definitely cook it a bit longer to try to get the center to have a bit more form.

Lastly, before the pictures, I wanted to let everyone know that a batter nearly fills a 7inch diameter 3inch tall spring form pan. I was surprised at how big the batter became with the ricotta, eggs, and flour.

Okay, here are highlighted pictures, I posted a whole photoset on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2212525&l=e9d27&id=5509449